Hacktivists 1.0 were Anonymous mask wearing outsiders. Subsequent generations are made up of insiders who use privacy enhancing technologies to hide their identities, to keep power under control or to disengage.
News and Research articles on Civil Society
When ‘governance’ started rhyming with ‘government’, Turkish activists thought, "it’s time to organise an alternative conference alongside the official UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF)". Read this interview with three organisers of the Internet Ungovernance Forum, which took place in Istanbul on 4-5 September 2014.
Facebook announced a first zero-service in 2010, but at this year's Internet Governance Forum in Istanbul, it was Wikipedia who had to defend itself against network neutrality advocates.
Governments have been barking at 'spying on friends'. Yet so far civil rights organisations and activists are those turning the heat on intelligence services and authorities by using the courts.
The French parliament has just decided to set up a Commission du numérique (Committee on digital affairs). This could change the course of European internet policy.
There are different reactions to the revelations of US whistleblower Edward Snowden. In Finland, civil society, industry and technical experts are alarmed and concerned about a potential case of ‘NSA envy’ at the Finnish Defense Ministry.
The NETmundial conference on internet governance was heralded as a success. But in civil society, assessments have been more nuanced.
It was a fail. At the 27th WIPO meeting in Geneva the European Commission and Council representatives did not agree on advancing work on copyright exemptions for libraries and archives.
In an ambitious move, the Brazilian government, technical and civil society organised a meeting to address key issues of internet governance. While not everybody was happy with the final result, process-wise it was a landmark meeting.
The computer security vulnerability ‘Heartbleed’ made the headlines worldwide. With operators still patching servers and users changing passwords, the question remains: how to prevent such failures in the future?
Since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 our international system is based upon the principle of territorial sovereignty. Today, however, cross-border online spaces made possible by the internet span across a system of fragmented national jurisdictions. Tension rises since we do not have the legal equivalent to the technical interoperability that enables the global internet. A choice has to be made.
The European Court of Justice today decided against the EU legislator and declared the data retention directive of 2006 null and void. A historic judgement, many parties say, and it means that implementations have to be rolled back all over Europe.
The dominant narrative about the governance of the internet in media and with high-level policymakers is misleading. Researchers Francesca Musiani and Julia Pohle explain what stands in the way of genuine multistakeholder internet governance as all eyes are turning towards Brazil and its NETmundial meeting.
Turkish business leaders, internet researchers and the Council of Europe were quick to reply when Turkish President Abdullah Gül went on to sign a package of draconian internet laws on February 18. The new legislation matters, not only for Turkey.
The European Commission today released a position statement on how it hopes to approach internet governance in the coming months. Internet governance specialist Bertrand de la Chapelle reacts to the statement in this op-ed.
“Digital” is written big in the coalition agreement, which was signed to give way to the new German government. Will this propell Germany onto the front seat in international internet politics.
If you do not see a policeman outside of your door, you are looking out of the wrong window. Read this scholarly essay as an analogy of privacy violations.
Civil disobedience is a familiar and well established phenomenon in Western societies. Currently, this concept of political action is challenged by new practices evolving on and around the internet. This paper focusses on the question of whether several forms of digital civil disobedience are legitimate.
Currently dominant cloud services raise challenges in terms of security, privacy and user autonomy. Decentralisation, advocated by civil society, may overcome some of the drawbacks.
Access to the net, while a core topic of the Internet Governance Forum, has seen more reporting than big visionary pictures. Universal access remains a huge challenge.